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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBlNE Second Season of Tsm' Probe Has Rough-Tumble Beginning; Hundred Witnesses to Come (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper Union. ' DOMESTIC: Un-Americanism Dearly beloved by congressional investigating committees are the hot days of a Washington summer when the slightest ruffle of news makes national headlines. Into this scene last summer came a new figure, Texas' Rep. Martin Dies with his loud-but-not-accurate committee investigating in-vestigating un-Americanism. This summer Martin Dies came back with a new committee and a new appropriation. At its first session ses-sion the committee gave reporters a story as newsy as last year's accusation ac-cusation that Shirley Temple was a Communist: Up to the witness stand strode German - American Bundmaster x i FUEHRER KUHN Who's a liar? Fritz Kuhn. After hearing his life story, Alabama's Rep. Joe Starnes made so bold as to ask' Fuehrer Kuhn if his organization wasn't intended in-tended to establish a Nazi government govern-ment in the U. S. "That's an absolute lie a flat lie!" shouted Kuhn. Flaming with anger, Joe Starnes jumped to his feet. Shoving reporters report-ers and photographers aside he strode toward the witness crying: "Don't call me a liar!" When capitol policemen had put an end to these fighting words, the committee got down to more serious work. With calm deliberation, Illinois Illi-nois Rep. Noah Mason drew enough information from the witness to make German-American bundism distasteful. When faced with the accusation ac-cusation that his bund is "a money-making money-making racket based on the credulity credu-lity of the American people," Kuhn countered by listing these strange objectives: (1) To unite the German-American element, (2) to fight communism, (3) to give the German element "political background." The committee also learned Fuehrer Kuhn had visited Hitler in 1936, had given him $3,000 for winter relief and had worn a Nazi uniform in a Berlin parade. His brother is a Berlin supreme court justice. His 20,000 bund followers (whose records have been destroyed) are pledged to defend the "good name of the mother country Germany." Most Americans, reading about Martin Dies'., newest revelations, agreed the committee had made a good start. Still on the docket, however, how-ever, was a list of some 110 witnesses wit-nesses whom agents, have rounded up since last February. Observers hoped this summer's investigation wouldn't follow last year's pattern a forum for unburdening grudges. S' RELIEF: Wages Up A key: provision rof this gear's $1,477,000,000 Relief appropriation was that WPA wages should.be juggled jug-gled to prevent afly mo?e geograph- In Paris . . . t a y s fit f ' "s ART Watteau's famous "L'lndif-ferent," "L'lndif-ferent," stolen from the Louvre June 11, was unexpectedly returned to Parisian police by 25-year-old Serge Bogouslavsky, an artist who admitted admit-ted he took the $200,000 painting to "bring back its original glory." Slapping Slap-ping the thief in jail, police called experts who found young Bogouslav-sky's Bogouslav-sky's retouching had not only restored re-stored the picture, but "actually improved im-proved it." ical variation than the difference in living costs necessitated. For the South, where labor is cheaper, this meant a raise. For the North it meant wage cuts. For big cities it meant elimination of the 10 per cent differential up or down, which was allowed for local conditions. Cast into three regions, south, north and west, new wage scales were announced by WPA Commissioner Commis-sioner F. C. Harrington: Region No. 1 (wage range. $39.30 to $94.90 per month) Connecticut, Delaware, Dela-ware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, In-diana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska. New Hamnshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin. Wis-consin. Region No. 2 (wage range, $44.20 to $94.90 per month) Arizona, California. Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming. Region No. 3 (wage range, $31.20 to $81.90 per month) Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma. South Carolina. Caro-lina. Tennessee, Texas, Virginia. Net result of the changes, observers observ-ers figured, will be to raise the national na-tional monthly average from $53 to $55.50. In the South rural wages will jump from $26 to $35 in rural areas, and from $40 to $50.70 in big cities. ARMY: Before the Battle At the second battle of Manassas in 1862, famed Stonewall Jackson sent his men a-raiding General Pope's headquarters. They returned re-turned with everything but the general gen-eral himself. Manassas again made headlines this month when the regular regu-lar U. S. army units duplicated Stonewall Jackson's strategy, captured cap-tured a brigadier general's outpost and advanced toward Washington against defending national guardsmen. guards-men. This was the first phase -of spectacular spec-tacular military maneuvers unmatched un-matched in U. S. peacetime. The second phase began at Plattsburg, N. Y., where 36,000 national guardsmen guards-men and regulars began their battle, this invader piercing from the north to meet the invader coming up through Manassas. Bigger than either battle, however, howev-er, was the realism of Plattsburg' s commander, Lieut. Gen. Hugh A, Drum. Night before the war began, stern-jawed General Drum assembled assem-bled 3,000 officers on the parade ground to present a few facts. Publicly Pub-licly scorned was the suggestion that his troops fight at "paper strength," i. e., with imaginary armament the army hopes some day to secure. The general demanded a campaign of reality, "to bring home the actualities actu-alities of our state of. preparedness." Only in tanks, he said, is the army up to strength. Other deficiencies: manpower, 77 per cent; machine guns, 67 per cent; trucks, 83; automatic auto-matic rifles, 57. Said he: "I do not intend to belittle be-little the advantages of speed. But mobility off the battlefield cfmnot compensate for inefficiency in the conduct of a fight. What we need to learn is how to fight." BUSINESS: Oil A simple law of economics is that prices drop as surpluses increase. No exception is crude oil, which in one week dropped a rough 30 cents a barrel. Major reason, thought oilmen, oil-men, was the rapid recent exploitation exploita-tion of new oil pools in Illinois, which operate full-blast without production pro-duction restrictions enforced by other oth-er states in the midcontinental area. Meeting in Oklahoma City, the interstate inter-state oil compact commission decided de-cided to let each state handle the problem in its own way. Five states (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Arkansas) found a way. Production was stopped for 15 days. In Tennessee . . . I v Vs UTILITIES Wendell Wilkie's Commonwealth & Southern power corporation said good-by to Tennessee, Tennes-see, where its lines had been purchased pur-chased by TVA. Said a full-page newspaper ad: "We still believe that the interests of the public are better served by privately operated utilities utili-ties . . . We could not stay in business busi-ness and compete with virtually tax-free tax-free . . . plants." Next day TVA gave Mr. Wilkie $78,600,030. EUROPE: W ar of Nerves Last summer it was Britain's Viscount Vis-count Runciman who volunteered to mediate the scrap between Czechoslovakia Czecho-slovakia and Germany. Mediation and Czecho-Slovakia's hopes-came hopes-came to a sudden end when Viscount Vis-count Runciman turned pro-Nazi. This month there arose a new potential po-tential Viscount Runciman named Dr. Karl J. Burckhardt, internationally internation-ally respected Swiss scholar appointed appoint-ed by the League of Nations as high commissioner of Danzig. Off to Hitler's Berchtesgaden eyrie he flew one day without notifying the League. There, while he listened in silence, Der Fuehrer lectured an- length about Danzig. Why had he, as high commissioner, com-missioner, allowed al-lowed "incidents" "inci-dents" in Danzig? Dan-zig? And why should Danzig not be returned immediatelyto the Reich? Dr. Burck- s ; s K ;tr a 1 narai naa no chance to di- BURCKHARDT vulgehis secret, A Runciman? that Great Britain alone knew about his mission and had empowered him to bespeak her official attitude on Danzig. Next day, back in Danzig, the commissioner forwarded a highly high-ly confidential report of proceedings to London. Significantly, neither Poland nor France got copies. Meanwhile, grasping at the chance, the controlled German press started another war of nerves, pouring out rumors of British-sponsored "peace plans." Veteran students stu-dents of propaganda decided this had two purposes (1) To 'make Poland Po-land think the British are ready to desert them, and (2) to find out, via the report-and-denial method, just how far Britain really will go toward appeasement. ' This latter point was indeed important. im-portant. High German circles confidently con-fidently expected Danzig would be returned to the Reich within a few weeks, since there was little chance Britain would aid Poland in rescuing Danzig from an internally inspired anschluss. So great was the confidence con-fidence that Der Fuehrer himself planned to cross into East Prussia late in August. Greater still, the press soon took Danzig for granted and began talking about German acquisition of Pomorze (Polish Corridor) Cor-ridor) as another aim in the appeasement-to-come. Forthefourth time in one year, Europe remembered remem-bered that Adolf Hitler only gets hungrier each time he's fed.1 AGRICULTURE: Rail Rebellion Expiring August 1 were loans on some 255,000,000 bushels of farm-sealed farm-sealed corn. Although the Commodity Commod-ity Credit corporation has offered to extend these loans, the consensus holds most farmers will turn their old grain over to the government, thereby making room for the 1939 crop. Last month the department of agriculture ag-riculture saw what was coming. Bids were called on 33,000 storage bins for defaulted corn. Topping this problem came another the railroads. First rebuff was the carriers' refusal re-fusal to let the government erect its bins without cost on railway property. prop-erty. Also denied was a reduced rate and elimination of demurrage charges on movement of the bins to their destination. The railroads thought they had good reason for being stubborn, because there was handwriting on the wall: This autumn will see first practical practi-cal application of the "ever-normal granary" program, designed to set aside excess supplies of grain in years of large production, to be held for lean crop periods. As it affects corn, this program will raise havoc with the normal flow of grain from farm to market via railroads. By buying its 33,000 bins, the U. S. will make storage at the farm end. Later, when finally moved, corn will be hauled as government property proper-ty and will thus bring additional loss of. revenue to railroads because land-grant statutes call for reduced -(50 per cent) carrying charges. In All U. S. . . . f s . r" THANKSGIVING Cartoonists and columnists had a field day because President Roosevelt said he would proclaim Thanksgiving November 23, not November 30. While calendar calen-dar makers moaned and college football officials complained thai their schedules would be upset, the state department finally announced Mr. Roosevelt's proclamation affects af-fects only the District of Columbia Each state sets its own. |
